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Learning to Embrace Change

A lot of the country is experiencing the joy and beauty of late Spring. Next month will be summer. Here in Wyoming we are experiencing 4th Winter. May 1st and we have a couple of inches of wet, slushy snow and more keeps falling. It looks more like early March than May Day. Yet, just a couple of days earlier it was beautiful and spring like here in town.

The weather changes and we can't totally predict it. Our meteorologists do their best, but even the experts can't totally predict it. Everything changes. The saying goes, "The only certain, things in life are death and taxes". While somewhat funny, it is true. Life is about change. Change is a constant. Life is a continual adaptation to change.

I am not someone that really likes change. I like to get in a groove and stay there for a good while. I like to keep friends for life. I wear clothes that are old, because I'm comfortable with my wardrobe and see no need to change it. The one thing I like to change is the arrangement of my furniture.

When I am stressed, when I can't sleep, when I need to relax, I rearrange my furniture (so yes it gets moved often). The nice thing about this is that all parts of my carpet get vacuumed often! The change with the familiar is nice. Same furniture, so that's the same, just a different layout. That's enough change for me!

With parenting, as with life, comes a lot of change. It seems like my daughter is always changing. Always growing. Always wanting to try new things. I am trying to embrace it, to encourage her to try new things and to stick with those things she finds success doing. It is fun watching her make her way in the world. Yet, it is hard for this stick in the mud mom to watch her grow and change. I want to keep her my fun loving little girl while I want her to grow and be the woman God has designed, to be a woman after God's own heart.

Change. Maybe I don't like it because a lot of my changes haven't been happy ones and they have been sudden. They brought trauma with them. More than anything I want to protect my daughter from experiencing the trauma I went through. Life has already shown me that I'm incapable of that. Her dad showed us that, that even the family circle isn't always a safe place.

As I creep closer to being a 40 year old I am learning that embracing change and accepting it for what it is can mean letting good things come into my life. Change can mean new friends, a fun new car, new furniture. It can mean accomplishing new milestones. Mostly, by accepting change with grace and even excitement I am teaching my daughter to embrace change for the reality that it is. And that is parenting, growing as an individual for personal growth, but also so that I can help my daughter grow as well. To prepare her for the life that she will face, to teach her to depend upon God when things happen she doesn't like.

Change. Not easy, but I am learning to embrace it.


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